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Monthly Archives: December 2012

There aren’t that many occasions besides weddings, New Year’s, and Christmas (and maybe an extra 52 days of the year here and there in our house), that it’s socially acceptable to go crazy with sparkly, glittery decor. So of course, in the name of sparkly living, I have to go all out for these particular holidays. See my 8 simple DIY tricks to add sparkle to your holiday table (without making you the neighborhood’s glittering weirdo), by clicking through the gallery below!

I finally mailed the Christmas gifts for our family yesterday (because I’m a procrastinator), and after I had a mild heart attack over the price tag, I swore I wasn’t going to buy any more Christmas related knick knacks. Alas, five minutes later, we get home and I’m out of name tags for the rest of our gifts.

Now, I had two options: get a little trashy with my name tags (and by trashy I mean post-it notes), or I could hole punch random Christmasy looking items from around my house to tie onto stuff. I chose the latter and ended up with DIY candy gift tags made from stashed Martha Stewart holiday coasters (that never made it into this post).

Originally I had planned on making an unconventional Christmas tree DIY using tulle and lights, but it really, really didn’t pan out. In fact, now that I actually write out “tulle Christmas tree”, I probably should have known..

On a brighter note, I’ve been hoarding this DIY wheeled create idea in the back of my mind for some time now, and I decided it would be a perfect double-duty solution for the holidays for traveling presents and organizing them once they’re opened. Clever, no? Okay, so maybe Santa thought of it first, but it’s still debatable.

Materials:

Wooden crate ($7 at Home Depot)

4 x Caster wheels

Screws for the casters

Spray paint (optional)

All you have to do to make this wheeled crate is spray paint the crate (unless you like the au naturale look), and then screw the wheels onto the bottom. It’s really simple, but packs a big punch!

Maybe I should start a column called Real Life, because sometimes, I just need a good healthy dose of “it doesn’t always have to be pink polka dots and gum drops” in the blog world for things to still be okay…

If you follow me on Instagram then you may have picked up on the fact that yesterday wasn’t necessarily my day. From waking up feeling feisty to messing up both DIY’s I tried to shoot, plus running late at my real job and having to remind myself not to cry throughout the whole day… you get the gist. It wasn’t my brightest day. I say all of this to remind you that though some of my recent contributions and successes are exciting, I still have my own mountain of laundry to clean and a normal job to work hard at to pay the bills. My house doesn’t clean itself and some days I wake up feeling like I could throw glitter across the room out of sheer grumpiness; not all of my projects turn out pretty, and my cakes don’t always rise. And you know what? Nor is everything perfect for the people behind other blogs, magazines, or Pinterest worthy weddings.

It’s really easy to get caught up in thinking everything has to look and be picture perfect these days, I’ve been really guilty of that lately. In reality, real joy and real life comes from choosing to dance even when it’s raining…